Fastest Internet Ever?

This is a discussion on Fastest Internet Ever? within the A Brief History of Cprogramming.com forums, part of the Community Boards category; From the IGN website:
Researchers Achieve Record Breaking Internet Speeds
The fastest internet ever?
by Scott Lowe
February 29, 2008 ...

Fastest Internet Ever?

February 29, 2008 - French researchers at Bell Labs announced today that they have managed to create a connection capable of transferring data at speeds of 16.4 terabytes-per-second. The firm claims that a connection was made over the span of 2,550 kilometers, roughly 1,584 miles, at a capacity of 41.8 petabits a second, per kilometer. The connection broke world records for capacity by distance through the use of 164 wavelength-division multiplexed channels, each modulating 100Gbps. In layman's terms, wavelength-division multiplexing technology essentially combines multiple optical signals into one optical fiber by organizing the laser light wavelengths into separate, distinguishable colors.

The significance of building a connection as prodigious as 16.4Tbps is important in terms of making strides towards the development of a 100Gbps Ethernet connection. By exploiting the increased fiber bandwidth made available by Bell Labs' recent innovations in wavelenght-division multiplexing, developers will be able to cope with the growing demands for greater capacity in internet backbones. As of press time, details on any projected public implementation remain unknown.

"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods."
-Christopher Hitchens

5.3 Tbytes per second. Nice. I don't see why they insist on using evil bits per second, though. We don't even measure speed in bits!

Thats because internet communication is serial, it has always been measured in bits. Also, with more and more internal computer components working via serial bus now in a way it makes sense to measure that throughput in bits too, although somehow i cant see that taking off.

Thats because internet communication is serial, it has always been measured in bits. Also, with more and more internal computer components working via serial bus now in a way it makes sense to measure that throughput in bits too, although somehow i cant see that taking off.

Quite, but seeing as you just divide by 8, I don't see why they won't measure in bytes.

Originally Posted by twomers

I dunno. I need a citation for that, Elysia! You can't make these ludicrous statements without any citations. Pff. Non-porno internet use. Hah!

Ooh, the dirty secrets we hide
But I can assure you there's so much more to find out there than porn!

The article makes a blooper as it claims in the beginning that it is measuring "terabytes-per-second" only later to claim it is 164 channels of 100Gbps totaling a mear 16.4Tbps. This article is a joke... I thought finally I would be able to transfer my entire catalog of por.... music to my friend in a reasonable amount of time which I estimate is approximately 200TB of por... data.

Let's put it this way. Let's say a very good quality video is approximately 10MB for each minute of video. That would say (if I did my math right, which it is entirely possible that I didn't) that one minute at the maximum transfer speed on this band would yield about 46 days worth of video. In three hours, you would have nearly 23 years worth of video. In half of a day, you can download enough video to last you your entire life. That's overkill, just a bit, I think.

Ah, but it's amazing the actually were able to put so many lines besides each other. Imagine the interference.
It's just a new speed record, not a new speed technology...
Unless it's pure optic, then it would actually be easier... I think it's purely optic.